Scotland: Draft Legislation

Debate between Lord Wallace of Tankerness and Baroness Adams of Craigielea

Thursday 22nd January 2015 Lords Chamber

[Lord Wallace of Tankerness]

My Lords, I am sure my noble friend would expect me to agree and I do, as my own party aspires to a federal United Kingdom. He rightly used the words “home rule”. This has been a campaigning issue for our party for more than 100 years. I am sure that Mr Gladstone would be very proud of what we have delivered today. He is right that we need to move on from here. There is a lot of work still to be done and we will ensure that today is not the end of the process. At official and ministerial level there is recognition of what more must be done so that a Bill is in preparation and ready to be brought forward after the Queen’s Speech following the election. The legislative timetable is not entirely in my hands, but it must be feasible to deliver this by the end of this year or, if not, in the early months of 2016. Having done it, I think all of us would want the issue to be about how the Scottish Parliament is going to use these powers. For so long we have had debates about what the powers are, whereas many people are asking how the powers can be used to improve the lot, and the social and economic well-being, of the people of Scotland.

Finally, I agree that the devolution of power is something which my noble friend and I in our party aspire to. But, as I have already said, the comments coming from some leading members of the Scottish National Party MSPs in recent weeks about centralising power and the attacks that there have been on local government in Scotland are very alarming. We have seen too much centralisation in the last two or three years in Scotland. I very much hope that a fresh wind of decentralisation will sweep through Scotland.

[Baroness Adams of Craigielea (Lab)]

My Lords, I also welcome the Statement that the noble and learned Lord has made today. I am glad to hear him say once more that all five parties signed up to this. But he will forgive me a little wobble because, on the day after the Smith commission reported, four SNP councillors in Renfrewshire burned that report outside the council offices. I have to wonder just what the commitment of the SNP is to this agreement. Will he clarify further what discussions have been made on further devolution to local Government? As he has already said, the Scottish Parliament has already sucked much of the power from local government to the centre. How far have the talks got on devolving some of that power back?

[Lord Wallace of Tankerness]

Any of us following the Scottish media, and probably even further than the boundaries of Scotland, saw that appalling scene when the report was burned. In fact, I have an instinctive gut horror at people burning any literature or writing and I find it very insidious. The SNP members of the commission signed that report and should be held to that. If they start complaining, they should be reminded of that. Nor was it signed at a low level: the Deputy First Minister signed on behalf of the SNP, along with Miss Fabiani. Therefore, it was signed at a high level and backsliding will be exposed.

What can be done about local government is a matter for the Scottish Parliament, which we can pursue within our respective parties. I do not think that it is really a matter for this Parliament to start legislating for local government in Scotland but we can create some of the mood music. I know from debates we have had in your Lordships’ House that from all parts of the United Kingdom and all parts of the House there has been a strong view of the need to decentralise more power in this country.

Scotland: Independence

Debate between Lord Wallace of Tankerness and Baroness Adams of Craigielea

Tuesday 24th June 2014 Lords Chamber

[Lord Wallace of Tankerness]

My Lords, I do not accept that. In a PR election, to win an outright majority of seats—the political reality was that there was an expectation that if we had sought to thwart that, it would have played into their hands. There was the possibility that they would have run their own referendum, which we would have argued was not legal, and we would have been embroiled in a constitutional mire. The fact is, there is a binary question, yes/no, but I rather think that some in the nationalist cause would have liked to have muddied the waters with a third question and allowed us all the time to negotiate among ourselves what the third option would be, thus taking our eye off the ball and not tackling the main issue, which is whether Scotland should be an independent country.

The noble Lord, Lord Birt, made important points about the BBC. As the committee indicates, that is one of the institutions that would belong to the continuing state. He highlighted the detriment that Scotland leaving the UK would cause the BBC: 10% less funding for BBC programmes and for the rest of the UK. He also pointed out, importantly, that of course the BBC is independent of government and any negotiations it had with the Scottish broadcasting service would be akin to the kinds of negotiations that I am sure it has with many other national broadcasting companies throughout Europe and the rest of the world. Unlimited access to BBC services in an independent Scotland would cost money, and it is naive and indeed misleading for the Scottish Government to pretend that everything would just go on as before.

The noble Baroness, Lady Adams, asked about English universities. Access for Scottish students would be the same as for those from other European Union countries. The other thing that is slightly odd is the Scottish Government trying to pretend that English students coming to Scottish universities could be treated differently from those from other European Union countries.

[Baroness Adams of Craigielea]

On that point, given that if Scotland voted yes it would no longer be part of the European Union, how then would Scottish students be treated?

[Lord Wallace of Tankerness]

Indeed, if Scotland was a member of the European Union, they would be treated the same as everyone else from there; if it was not, they would be treated the same as international students from India or wherever. Of course, if Scotland were to be part of the European Union—a point that I think the noble Lord, Lord Foulkes, is about to latch on to—the idea that you could allow free tuition for students from every other European Union country and charge English students does not have any sound basis. It is difficult to say that you want to enter into a social union with other parts of the United Kingdom but one of the first things you do is charge its students when you are not charging anyone else.